Poet, Equestrian and Straight-A Student

Margarita Middle School 7^th grader Riley Von Richter’s future is looking bright. She is a straight A student with quite a few feathers in her cap.

In addition to excelling in equestrian sports, Von Richter is extremely active in scholastic and community achievements as well.

This year Riley was nominated by one of her teachers to attend a prestigious science camp at UCSD.  Only 2 students per school are nominated and have to write a lengthy essay and go through an interview process to secure one of the camp's 6 spots.  Von Richter is awaiting her results.

“I had to do a lot of research on the subject I am most interested in studying in college, Zoology, and then write an essay about it,” Riley said.

She is an animal lover and has dreams and goals of becoming either a zoologist or a marine biologist.

Riley became involved in the equestrian world in 2008 when she was 9 years old. At summer camp that year, she was assigned a fat and lazy horse and came in last place in all of her competitions and games.

She didn’t let that sour her love of riding. Lessons followed and her parents realized she had a found her passion. She regularly competes in Hunter competitions with great results.

 “Riley loves to ride and she works very hard at it,” explained Riley’s mom, Polly.

Riley added, “It is such a fun sport. It is more challenging than most people think and is a lot of hard work.”

In addition to all of her extra-curricular activities, Von Richter has been on the honor roll since she entered Margarita Middle School and has maintained straight A’s.  She has won numerous awards including Temecula Sister Cities Haiku Contest.